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for every asshole who asked me this very question since Jarkko and I got married I'd be able to retire to St. Croix. Beyond being rude it has become creepy as you watch all your friends and colleagues succumb to the seeming cult of parenthood who then prod you about joining up. They offer you comments telling you what a super kid you'd have to encourage you to suspend your disbelief and disdain long enough to reconsider without thinking about any of the many, many reasons why you might not want them. Some o

It's not a matter of being the right or wrong decision.
The key is that it's no one else's business.

I would suggest that explaining why you don't want kids only adds to the problem, since you're playing by their rules and drawing them into your decision-making process. Talking with someone about it makes it their business, since you're engaging them in the discussion. "That's not something I/we care to discuss" is a perfectly reasonable answer, repeated as often as necessary.
A good response to the su

but in this freaky spawning-crazed time we seem to be in, polite responses merely egg them on as, you know, 'why else would someone get married except to pump out kids, she's just being coy!' I've found that glowering works well and, in gnat's case, 'fuck off' sometimes works too.:) I simply moved to Finland where they seem to have far less verbal inclination and where 48% of the households are singletons.

Did a similarly frustrated and bitter singleton/married unload a rant on you today? Shouldn't you be

polite responses merely egg them on as, you know, 'why else would someone get married except to pump out kids, she's just being coy!'

I think you'll find that repeating a simple, polite declination to participate will work, and will not "egg them on", and obviates the need to tell someone off.

Them: "So when are you and Jarkko gonna have kids?"
You: "I'm sorry, that's not something we care to discuss."
Them: "Oh, you must have talked about it, haven't you?"
You: "That's not something we care to discuss.

see, but that's having a conversation and the 'not something we care to discuss' just makes people come back for more and I appreciate the simplicity of the glowering dirty look or obscenity to drive that point home faster and without dancing about the maypole.

People seem totally obsessed about babies these days so I'm sure you'll get that question again as people harmlessly assume that if you're in the cult for one then it's ok to ask if you're going to renew your subscription with an affirmation:)

you're too young to remember the 70s and 80s when having kids was passe and there weren't babies on practically every advert. It's just weird how cult-like the fad has become is all....it's all part of the new world order in the us i suppose. Pretty soon singletons and DINKs will have to go to carousel to make room for more productive units.

I guess I am thinking that regardless of the media attention to babies, the people who have babies have always obssessed about them, and there have always been a ton of people having babies. I can see how the extra attention from the media can add to the unwanted pressure, but I really can't see how the people who are having kids have changed all that much in this respect.

Not always as I was born in the long gap between the boomers and the x-ers where there was a rather long lull in procreation...right around the time of the pill and women's lib. My classes in school were very small and there wasn't the same 'for the kids' cult-ure that seems to now pervade the very fabric of the US in particular. I've been watching the trend with some fascination in books, the media and adverts and I'd love to see someone go over the 70s, 80s, 90s and the past few years to study the dramati